Bits of Glass
by Lyanna Kane
Summary: Break an hourglass in Hellsing manor, and you're likelier to get blood on your hands rather than sand. Collection of short stories, interludes, missing moments, whatnot. Story II: doing one's waiting.


**Author's notes: **as mentioned in the true summary, collection of short stories, varying in length from a drabblish form to no more than –say- 5000 words. Themes, POVs and general plotlines, including the source of inspiration (manga, anime) are always subject to great variation. Basically, if there's any "missing moment" or theory that LK feels like investing a bit of time in, without launching in a true story, this is the format it's likeliest to adopt.

**General rating:** PG-13 - R

**Summary for present chapter:** (ep 13 interlude) they found Sir Integral hours after the disaster in itself had commenced. Where, how and why remains to be seen.

**Rating for present chapter:** PG-13

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"Sir Hellsing, what may I do for- Oh God- Integral…"

"Doctor Tre- " –a slight hiss- "-velian. May I possibly come in?"

She tried to say her greetings as pleasantly as one should when popping up at another's door in the proverbial middle of the night. It was truly well past sunset, or so she thought; but these were autumn nights, after all, and evenings had a distinct inclination for being at their darkest when a bit of light in the lonely streets would have been appreciated.

Doctor Henric Trevelian, Eton wonder extraordinaire and Hellsing employee of the month, year and all around eternity did little to hide his surprise. Blasted man, should have learned a bit more propriety. It was perfectly unreasonable of him to keep her on her feet, while the blood piling around her neck, chest, wrists and several other parts she did well not to consider – well, while all this thick, bothersome blood was threatening to flood his carpet. Made a waste of all the fine wool.

She'd thought of assuming a certain detachment upon having her first wound pulse and spill her blood. No point in alarm, after all, even though this was an organism that'd been a bit overused as of late. But, when the other little injuries had made their merry way on her body, she'd concluded that there was only an absence of mind verging derangement that could possibly keep her in control. It wasn't that she had an unnatural fear of blood, what with raising with a vampire. Oh no. But she really rather liked that shirt she'd had on, and oh what a fuss it was to find chemise to match a military outfit _and_ that ghastly council sword.

- but wasn't dear Trevelian taking his sweet time in assessing the situation. Poor Henry, poor old sod, fancy that. Maybe she should have called in advance before coming by? Well, that's what Father had told her to do, the done thing and all the such, couldn't be helped – but there really were no telephones available at the Tower, something about the entire building crashing down and the network going to pieces.

The Tower. Now _there_ was a tale to tell. Wonder whether he'd want to listen. Wonder whether she could come up with the flair to make it more than a tedious repetition of the words "blood" and "gore". That was a decent summary in its own way, or so she deemed it: Tower, blood, gore, Tower, blood, gore.

A little wheel made a just as little pop as it fixed the malfunction in Trevelian's brain and had him awaken from his stupor. Integral could almost hear it.

"Certainly." He led her through, and she nodded absently; took a seat when he asked it of her. The radio was playing the sad little tune of a witness describing something with affected dread. She'd learned to smell lies or deceit in any making; a skill she'd mastered unintentionally but put to good use throughout time.

**--- we never knew what it was about, and then everything came crashing, and oh God, all those men – I saw their banners once – and my daughter –Emily- she was there when the northern wall came down and ---**

Ah yes. This was a scene she was well acquainted to. The Tower. How many men fallen? More than she could bear to count, all having pledged a one allegiance. For Hellsing, for Sir Wingates Fairbrook, for love and for honour and for all those other little tidbits cleverly making up "morals".

"Turn it down." She tilted her head on the pleasantly warm cushion. An old-age sofa. She'd always liked them.

He frowned at this. "Does it bother you?"

"Yes. Blatant lies tend to do that."

He did and excused himself to retrieve his medical tools and prepare her a decent anaesthetic.

The radio's volume had been lowered, but she could still make out the crying. The same damned report, over and over again, always LIVE, they said, always for their SPECIAL AUDIENCE.

**--- my brother was a fireman involved in the –the- the situation. He…he never made it out. I don't know who it was, or why they did it, I don't know and I don't care, but MY BROTHER had to pay the price for their wars! I am sick of this country where only the innocents die! I am sick of not knowing who's pulling the strings – I am sick of---**

"More lies?" Trevelian again. He had a fine, deep voice, would have possibly made a good vocalist. She knew he had a certain skill with the piano. She'd returned to the Manor once to find him playing forcibly, Beethoven no less – she remembered disliking the piece, as she did all the "giants", if for the fact that they were overmediatized and nothing else. And then she'd seen him, pushing on the claps mightily, fingers reddened from the power of it, a feverish look of concentration on and on and on, tangling to the sweat and fatigue and the pain in his hands.

Alucard had said he would chew his fingers off if he didn't put them to good use.

She shook her head. "

"The media. Should. Rot."

Madmen. They didn't know a thing. Judging her – she wasn't to be judged, she was above God for just one moment, above the Queen, yet serving them both. God and Queen and the Hellsing lineage, the Holy Trinity rewritten for her and her alone.

And then blissful silence? No.

"You've been drinking," Trevelian said smoothly, all cool and professional from the other room. Would he have told it to her face? Oh why not, in the end, she wouldn't have bothered to deny it. She _had_ been drinking, and quite decently at that. Nothing, Seras Victoria had insisted, to make the shock go away better than a small taste of cognac. Nothing to make the pain go away better than the first glass of Remy. Nothing to make the fear go away better than the second. And nothing better than the entire bottle, she herself had decided, to banish the thought of Alucard dying a horribly anticlimactic death at the hand of a genderless fool. See, there was the rub. No gender. She could have easily invented Incognito an invective had she at least had the certainty of his sexual identity.

She shuddered, briefly. Cold. So cold. She hadn't been cold on the way here, when she had little but crawled down the alleys, led by her stubbornness. No where to go, she wouldn't be found on the streets, like a stray dog, not without making herself presentable. All the blood did so little for her complexion, she felt. But the cold was there, now, eating on her bones, keeping her eyes open.

Perhaps this was why hell, this accepted and utterly romantic vision of hell to which she had never fully committed, was so very searing, and why there was warmth associated with sin, and then death. Cold maintained life, for endless cold maintained pain. And there was life in pain. As long as you felt the pain, then you were alive, all alive and untouchable.

_Do you feel the pain, Hellsing? Do you feel the life?_ Long fingers clenched in tight knuckled fists. Well do you…? She didn't. No pain. No life. God bless the Catholic panoply and its Holy Inquisition – there'd been so much life there, eh? And unlike her own crusades, the Catholics had at least kept to their privileged seats in Rome and not had to see their men perish in their holy wars. Integral hadn't been as fortunate.

Integral should have been a Catholic.

Trevelian had to take her gloves off and slide the syringe in a swollen vein, dark and pronounced on rough skin. She had beautiful hands, but she hadn't known it until then. Her skin was rough from the blisters, but the fingers were long and slender. Unprotected.

White. The white of her gloves, the white of the knight's shining armour. Such nonsense, that. Black reflected light so much the better of the two, and it would have had a better shine. And what was white in itself? The colour of innocence. She laughed at that. They shed their tears at funerals and dressed all in black, but death was the final redemption. She wondered briefly why she had never worn more black before. It would have made her feel pure. White, however, was not as efficient. In white one lavished under illusions. Snow covered dirt, but snow did not erase it. Snow swallowed it. And ice killed.

White, therefore, did not even invite death, or she might have agreed to wear at least white when issuing her orders to her men and sending them to God. God's army they were, not because they fought for him – some were secretly atheists, she knew, but it had mattered little to her at the time of their recruiting- but because they died for him and so came in his possession. Blessed be God and His modesty. He had all their souls but had wanted none.

Her fingers slipped carelessly on the buttons, managing to push the right one at just the wrong moment.

**--- though it has yet to be confirmed, the said Hellsing organization has been narrowed down as pertaining to a Miss—**

- gone was the sound, but not the imminent threat.

Would the Council come to her help? She doubted it. The web of politics was a knot not intricate enough for those with the right ideas in mind - for those willing to seize the knowledge that power, in itself, was futile. It was its influence on the human spirit that bore any consequence.

She was a meagre Knight, and recently named at that. They said time was relative and dependent on one's age. To ask a child to wait five minutes for candy was the same as asking his mother to wait an hour for her coffee. Therefore, the half decade since her Knighting would have seemed a trifle to them. Her words would not be paid heed because she had been part of their little snobbish club too long, just as neither would she gain any credit for any family fortune. Abraham had been little but a beggar at his Majesty's feet, and then the lineage had followed on the habit of grovelling for tomorrow's meals. They had little money on their own, hardly any if they were to earn their own keep. She had no standing, no fortune, no connections.

But she could crush them all because she had taken to the rules and learnt them so well until she could afford to twist them to her liking and make the fact that she was indeed the mistress of the little shadow under their beds her advantage rather than otherwise. She'd told them so once.

Oh, how they'd delighted in that.

_Do you feel the pain, Hellsing?_

No, no pain in dishonour.

Her mind was a blaze of thoughts watered down sudden and unwanted checks of reality. She was a dairy, now, and then she was a pagan dancing a last dance of death and then she was being far less dramatic and plain throwing herself from the Tower.

In between that, there was sleep, and then the occasional word scribbled in her damnably VILE handwriting. She hated it, hated it with a passion, much as she assumed everyone did. She hesitated to call anything ugly, but then she rarely if ever had to reread her own notes.

The letters resembled one another beautifully.

By the fifteenth, she was already mistaking the names.

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_"Mrs. Talley,_

_My name is Integral Wingates Hellsing, superintendent of the Hellsing organization designed to assist our Majesty's combat institution under which your husband, Edward Talley has been serving for the past year. _

_I regret to inform you that today your husband suffered injuries of an extremely delicate nature. He passed away this afternoon at 18: 34. _

_It is with the utmost sincerity that I most convey my condolences and assure you that the Hellsing organization shall see to all the necessary funeral arrangements as well as all your present necessities…"_

_"…your son was unfortunately part of the expedition directed in the Tower's vicinities. His wounds infected up to the point where he requested his life's termination…"_

_"... Amelia, I see why at your delicate age of eleven you might find it a hard truth to grasp, but your father's death – death in general – was both grieving and unexpected. The Hellsing institution offers to see to the completion of your education and…"_

_"…your brother…blind."_

_"…your son…paralyzed…"_

_"…your husband…coma…"_

_"…blood loss."_

_"…limbless."_

_"…immediate death."_

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She was sleeping when they came for her, the Queen's men at their finest and summons at hand. There was no inspection, though she'd sobered by then. Trevelian borrowed her one of his coats. It sat so poorly on her, that it almost made her smile. It didn't. But it almost had.

"You'll come of own accord?" They asked. She let them pull handcuffs around her hands, her now gloved hands, thank goodness for small mercies. Trevelian played more of a show, demanded that, as a minor pawn at the Queen's Chess board, he should at least be told where they were taking her.

There were men on the streets when they took her out, and they surely must have thought Trevelian a touch off in the head because of all his shouting.

Integral couldn't quite say she gave a damned. It was her they were pointing at, it was her name they were tarnishing, her bloodline now accursed. Everything else could be shrugged off and, my, did she end up doing a lot of shrugging. Just for a moment she willed Alucard dead, and a light little laugh in the back of her head spoke clearly of just how much he shared the sentiment. _He _wouldn't have had need to shrug. Damn him.

Children had gathered in a corner. A newly come girl, all pig-tails and pink hair clips was in awe at the sight. "But who are they taking away?"

Integral tilted her head softly, a small smile playing on ashen lips. "Don't you have a radio?"

**_Do you feel the pain, Hellsing? Do you feel the life? _**

**_Heh. _**

**_To hell with Hellsing. _**

**_We're better off dead._**

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**Author's note, for the Nth time: **perhaps a slight overdone on the noir, PWP style. Oh well. Happy First Witching Hour (Halloween, if you must, or even Samhain to those who feel they are excluded)!


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